In a macroevolutionary timescale, evolvability itself evolves. Lineages are sorted based on their ability to generate adaptive novelties, which leads to the optimization of their genotype-phenotype map. The system of translation of genetic or epigenetic changes to the phenotype may reach significant horizontal and vertical complexity, and may even exhibit certain aspects of learning behaviour. This continuously evolving semiotic system probably enables the origin of complex yet functional and internally compatible adaptations. However, it also has a second, “darker”, side. As (...) was pointed out by several authors, the same process gradually reduces the probability of the origination of significant evolutionary novelties. In a similar way to the evolution of societies, teachings, or languages, in which the growing number of internal linkages gradually solidifies their overall structure and the structure or interpretation of their constitutive elements, the evolutionary potential of lineages decreases during biological evolution. Possible adaptations become limited to small “peripheral” modifications. According to the Frozen Evolution theory, some of the proximate causes of this “macroevolutionary freezing” are more pronounced or present exclusively in sexual lineages. Sorting based on the highest evolvability probably leads to the establishment of certain structural features of complex organisms, e.g. the modular character of their development and morphology. However, modules also “macroevolutionary freeze” whereas the hypothetical “thawing” of modules or their novel adaptive combinations becomes rarer and rarer. Some possible ways out of this dead end include the rearrangement of individual development, e.g. neoteny, radical simplification, i.e. sacculinization, and transition to a higher level of organization, e.g. symbiosis or symbiogenesis. The evolution of evolvability is essentially a biosemiotic process situated at the intersection of the genocentric modern synthesis and the evo-devo-centric extended synthesis. Therefore, evolvability may eventually connect these three not necessarily contradictory approaches. (shrink)

This paper focuses on compost use in overpasses and underpasses for wild animals over roads and other similar linear structures. In this context, good quality of compost may result in faster and more resistant vegetation cover during the year. Inter alia, this can be interpreted also as reduction of damage and saving lives. There are millions of tones of plant residue produced every day worldwide. These represent prospective business for manufacturers of compost additives called “accelerators”. The opinions of the sale (...) representatives’ with regards to other alternatives of biowaste utilization and their own products were reviewed. The robust analyzes of several “accelerated” composts revealed that the quality was generally low. Only two accelerated composts were somewhat similar in quality to the blank sample that was produced according to the traditional procedure. Overlaps between the interests of decision makers on future soil fertility were weighed against the preferences on short-term profit. Possible causes that allowed the boom of these underperforming products and the possible consequences are also discussed. Conclusions regarding the ethical concerns on how to run businesses with products whose profitability depends on weaknesses in the legal system and customer unawareness are to follow. (shrink)

Self-resemblance has been found to have a context-dependent effect when expressing preferences for faces. Whereas dissimilarity preference during mate choice in animals is often explained as an evolutionary adaptation to increase heterozygosity of offspring, self-resemblance can be also favored in humans, reflecting, e.g., preference for kinship cues. We performed two studies, using transformations of facial photographs to manipulate levels of resemblance with the rater, to examine the influence of self-resemblance in single vs. coupled individuals. Raters assessed facial attractiveness of other-sex (...) and same-sex photographs according to both short-term and long-term relationship contexts. We found a preference for dissimilarity of other-sex and same-sex faces in single individuals, but no effect of self-resemblance in coupled raters. No effect of sex of participant or short-term vs. long-term attractiveness rating was observed. The results support the evolutionary interpretation that dissimilarity of other-sex faces is preferred by uncoupled individuals as an adaptive mechanism to avoid inbreeding. In contrast, lower dissimilarity preference of other-sex faces in coupled individuals may reflect suppressed attention to attractiveness cues in potential alternative partners as a relationship maintenance mechanism, and its substitution by attention to cues of kinship and psychological similarity connected with greater likelihood of prosocial behavior acquisition from such persons. (shrink)

The work of Jaroslav Rossler, one of the most important photographers of the Czech avant-garde of the first half of the twentieth century.

[Jan Dejnožka: The Ontology of the Analytic Tradition.and Its Origins].

Existuje překvapivě málo knih, které by se pokoušely o syntetizující pohled na analytickou filosofii. Je ovšem pravda, že ve druhé polovině našeho století se soubor filosofů, kteří se k analytické filosofii hlásí nebo kteří k ní bývají řazeni, stává natolik různorodý, že se jakákoli syntéza stává problematickou; překvapivě málo syntetizujících prací existuje ale i o ‘klasické’ analytické filosofii, to jest o analytické filosofii období zhruba od konce devatenáctého století do poloviny století dvacátého. Dejnožkova kniha je jednou z těch mála, které (...) se o něco takového pokouší, a to je třeba přivítat. Dejnožka se ovšem nesnaží podat všestranný rozbor názorů klasiků analytické filosofie; soustředí se pouze jeden aspekt jejich učení, totiž na jejich ontologii. Hned v úvodu své knihy k tomu vysvětluje, jaké opodstatnění může mít hovořit o ontologii u takového druhu filosofie, která se programově distancuje od metafyziky. Podle něj je tomu tak, že i když se někteří analytičtí filosofové někdy více či méně úspěšně vyhýbali otázkám metafyzickým (to jest otázkám po nejzákladnějších kategoriích bytí), ontologickým otázkám (to jest otázkám po povaze bytí jako takového) se v podstatě vyhnout nelze. A Dejnožka se snaží ukázat, že klasikové analytické filosofie se těmito otázkami zabývali mnohdy velice do hloubky. To je patrné zejména u Frega a Russella, kterým autor věnuje největší pozornost; avšak k těm, kteří podle Dejnožky berou ústřední otázku ontologie za svou, řadí Dejnožka i Wittgensteina i Quina (jimž se však věnuje na pouze velice omezeném prostoru - každému asi na dvanácti stránkách). (shrink)

1. Prof. PhDr. František Daneš, DrSc. ; Prof. PhDr. Eva Hajičová, DrSc. ; PhDr. Pavel Jančák, CSc. ; Prof PhDr. Miroslav Komárek, DrSc. ; Doc. PhDr. Iva Nebeská, CSc. ; Prof. PhDr. Bohumil Palek, DrSc. ; PhDr Jaromír Povejšil, CSc. ; PhDr. Marie Těšitelová, DrSc. ; Prof. PhDr. Oldřich Uličný, DrSc. ; Prof. PhDr. Radoslav Večerka, DrSc. -- 2. Jan Balhar, Zoe Hauptová, Milan Jelínek, Jan Kořenský, Jiří Kraus, Jaroslav Kuchař, Zdena Palková, Petr Sgall, Dušan Šlosar, Ludmila Uhlířová.

Annotation: The article contains the research concerning the possible impact of Karl Barth`s figure and theological issues on the theology of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century. There is a comparative analysis of how powerful and significant was the level of impact of Barth`s scientific experience on the theologians of his era, in comparison with the most prominent representatives of Christian thought from the earlier centuries, beginning with the times of ancient church, the Middle Ages, (...) the 16th century protestant Reformation, as well as his contemporaries. As it was clarified, Karl Barth made a striking impulse for the further radical deconstruction of what is considered to be the achievements of 19th`s century liberal protestant theology (which made him a lot of detractors among his colleagues), made a loud accent on the necessity of the Christocentric approach to all the spheres of theology, newly updated, actualized and convincingly demonstrated the importance of ancient church creeds and dogmas in the field of Triadology and Christology, as well as in an unusual way he intensified and revived the intellectual search in the protestant universities and academies by his reshaping and changing the paradigms of the whole western theology in a radical way. In the article were taken into account some reviews on Barth`s “Epistle to the Romans” (second edition, 1922), which caused lively discussions and prolonged controversy because of specific and non-standard hermeneutical approaches to the biblical text, which Barth demonstrated in this one of the most eminent theological works of the 20th century. The article reveals not only the attitude towards Barth`s theological heritage that was showed by his protestant colleagues, but also reveals the sincere admiration for his theology from some Orthodox researchers, in particular, the honored professor of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, John Karavidopulos, and the world famous specialist in the history of Christianity and medieval intellectual history, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr., who converted to Orthodoxy in 1998. In the article`s conclusion there`s a piece of information concerning the fact that the impact of Barth`s dogmatics and hermeneutics on the modern departments of theology is not so noticeable as one might expect. In particular, we can make such a conclusion because of (1) the absence of true consolidation and common vision about the methods of theologizing between the western universities and church seminaries, (2) the popularity of so called “natural theology” which nowadays often seems to be regarded as an important prerequisite for all further theological researches, while Barth himself was a categorical opponent of this discourse, (3) the domination of binary opposition between conservatives and liberals in context of some modern theological discussions, while Karl Barth always tried to organically combine his devotion to the protestant orthodoxy with his efforts to be relevant and adequate to the requirements of his time. (shrink)

Annotation: The article contains the research concerning the possible impact of Karl Barth`s figure and theological issues on the theology of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st century. There is a comparative analysis of how powerful and significant was the level of impact of Barth`s scientific experience on the theologians of his era, in comparison with the most prominent representatives of Christian thought from the earlier centuries, beginning with the times of ancient church, the Middle Ages, (...) the 16th century protestant Reformation, as well as his contemporaries. As it was clarified, Karl Barth made a striking impulse for the further radical deconstruction of what is considered to be the achievements of 19th`s century liberal protestant theology (which made him a lot of detractors among his colleagues), made a loud accent on the necessity of the Christocentric approach to all the spheres of theology, newly updated, actualized and convincingly demonstrated the importance of ancient church creeds and dogmas in the field of Triadology and Christology, as well as in an unusual way he intensified and revived the intellectual search in the protestant universities and academies by his reshaping and changing the paradigms of the whole western theology in a radical way. In the article were taken into account some reviews on Barth`s “Epistle to the Romans” (second edition, 1922), which caused lively discussions and prolonged controversy because of specific and non-standard hermeneutical approaches to the biblical text, which Barth demonstrated in this one of the most eminent theological works of the 20th century. The article reveals not only the attitude towards Barth`s theological heritage that was showed by his protestant colleagues, but also reveals the sincere admiration for his theology from some Orthodox researchers, in particular, the honored professor of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, John Karavidopulos, and the world famous specialist in the history of Christianity and medieval intellectual history, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Jr., who converted to Orthodoxy in 1998. In the article`s conclusion there`s a piece of information concerning the fact that the impact of Barth`s dogmatics and hermeneutics on the modern departments of theology is not so noticeable as one might expect. In particular, we can make such a conclusion because of (1) the absence of true consolidation and common vision about the methods of theologizing between the western universities and church seminaries, (2) the popularity of so called “natural theology” which nowadays often seems to be regarded as an important prerequisite for all further theological researches, while Barth himself was a categorical opponent of this discourse, (3) the domination of binary opposition between conservatives and liberals in context of some modern theological discussions, while Karl Barth always tried to organically combine his devotion to the protestant orthodoxy with his efforts to be relevant and adequate to the requirements of his time. (shrink)

Articles on Indian philosophy; a Marxist's viewpoint.

Článek analyzuje argument Pascalovy sázky a některé klíčové námitky proti ní – kritiku Antonyho Duffa, Alana Hájka a tradiční námitku mnoha Bohů. Pascalův argument je reformulován tak, aby těmto námitkám co nejlépe odolal. Analýza ukazuje, že revidovaná podoba sázky zůstává otevřeným problémem teorie rozhodování.The article analyzes some important reasons pro and contra Pascal`s wager argument. Many gods objection and objections by Antony Duff and Alan Hájek are discussed. A reformulation of Pascal`s wager is offered in order to make the case (...) for Pascal`s conclusion stronger. It is shown that some form of wager could still represent a serious problem for rational decision theory. (shrink)

In the late 19th century, T. G. Masaryk presented his national programme. This vision of modern Czech society rested on the ideals of humanity, thus infusing the national ethos with a universal dimension. The significance of T. G. Masaryk's thought is investigated by current Czech thinkers in this volume.

The Anthropocene concept arose within the Earth System science community, albeit explicitly as a geological time term. Its current analysis by the stratigraphical community, as a potential formal addition to the Geological Time Scale, necessitates comparison of the methodologies and patterns of enquiry of these two communities. One means of comparison is to consider some of the most widely used results of the ESS, the ‘planetary boundaries’ concept of Rockström and colleagues, and the ‘Great Acceleration’ graphs of Steffen and colleagues, (...) in terms of their stratigraphical expression. This expression varies from virtually non-existent to pronounced and many-faceted, while in some cases stratigraphical proxies may help constrain anthropogenic process. The Anthropocene concepts of the ESS and stratigraphy emerge as complementary, and effective stratigraphic definition should facilitate wider transdisciplinary communication. (shrink)

The concept of a socially extended mind suggests that our cognitive processes are extended not simply by the various tools and technologies we use, but by other minds in our intersubjective interactions and, more systematically, by institutions that, like tools and technologies, enable and sometimes constitute our cognitive processes. In this article we explore the potential of this concept to facilitate the development of a critical neuroscience. We explicate the concept of cognitive institution and suggest that science itself is a (...) good example. Science, through various practices and rules, shapes our cognitive activity so as to constitute a certain type of knowledge, packaged with relevant skills and techniques. To develop this example, we focus on neuroscience, its cultural impact, and the various institutional entanglements that complicate its influence on reframing conceptions of self and subjectivity, and on defining what questions count as important and what kind of answers will be valued. (shrink)

This essay proposes to view networks as sociocultural structures. Following authors from Leopold von Wiese and Norbert Elias to Gary Alan Fine and Harrison White, networks are configurations of social relationships interwoven with meaning. Social relationships as the basic building blocks of networks are conceived of as dynamic structures of reciprocal (but not necessarily symmetric) expectations between alter and ego. Through their transactions, alter and ego construct an idiosyncratic "relationship culture" comprising symbols, narratives, and relational identities. The coupling of social (...) relationships to networks, too, is heavily laden with meaning. The symbolic construction of persons is one instance of this coupling. Another instance is the application of social categories (like race or gender), which both map and structure social networks. The conclusion offers an agenda for research on this "meaning structure of social networks.". (shrink)

Kaum ein anderer Denker hat die jüdische Moderne in einem so hohen Maße beeinflusst wie der Philosoph Baruch Spinoza. Als eine intellektuelle Grenzfigur, die nach ihrer Verbannung aus der jüdischen Gemeinde Amsterdams im Jahre 1656 in die christlich-abendländische Geisteswelt eintrat, inspirierte er jene Aufklärer der Haskala, die ein gutes Jahrhundert später nach einem eigenen jüdischen Weg in die europäische Moderne suchten. Diese Denker trafen dabei auf eine nichtjüdische Gelehrtenwelt, in der sich mit dem Namen des niederländischen Philosophen ebenso idealisierende Erwartungen (...) wie irrationale Ängste gegenüber dem in Spinoza identifizierten intellektuellen Idealtypus des Jüdischen verbanden. Somit ist die Geschichte der jüdischen Rezeption Spinozas seit dem Zeitalter der europäischen Aufklärung stets ein Indikator dafür, welchen Stand das wechselhafte Verhältnis zwischen jüdischer und nichtjüdischer Welt gerade erreicht hatte. Im Nachvollzug der Verlaufsformen der jüdischen Spinoza-Rezeption vom 17. bis ins 20. Jahrhundert zeigt die vorliegende Studie, wie sich jüdisches Selbstbild und Fremdzuschreibung immer wieder wechselseitig bedingt haben. (shrink)

This book provides for the first time a complete history of the doctrine of the transcendentals and shows its importance for the understanding of philosophy in the Middle Ages.

This paper synthesizes confirmation by instances and confirmation by successful predictions, and thereby the Hempelian and the hypothetico-deductive traditions in confirmation theory. The merger of these two approaches is subsequently extended to the piecemeal confirmation of entire theories. It is then argued that this synthetic account makes a useful contribution from both a historical and a systematic perspective.

It seems that the reception of Conrad Hal Waddington’s work never really gathered speed in mainstream biology. This paper, offering a transdisciplinary survey of approaches using his epigenetic landscape images, argues that (i) Waddington’s legacy is much broader than is usually recognized—it is widespread across the life sciences (e.g. stem cell biology, developmental psychology and cultural anthropology). In addition, I will show that (ii) there exist as yet unrecognized heuristic roles, especially in model building and theory formation, which Waddington’s images (...) play within his work. These different methodological facets envisioned by Waddington are used as a natural framework to analyze and classify the manners of usage of epigenetic landscape images in post-Waddingtonian ‘landscape approaches’. This evaluation of Waddington’s pictorial legacy reveals that there are highly diverse lines of traditions in the life sciences, which are deeply rooted in Waddington’s methodological work. (shrink)

Meetings differ from ordinary conversation in that they have an agenda that specifies in advance the topics to be addressed during the meeting. However, the introduction of these topics needs to be locally accomplished and recognized by the participants as agenda items. This article presents some characteristic practices used for introducing agenda-based topics. It shows that they rely on the known-in-advance status of the items, and are presented by the chair as unilateral announcements. They exploit and invoke the written agenda (...) in several ways. The announcements are often short phrasal constructions, just citing the written title of the agenda point. Furthermore, a gaze down at the written document is used as a public display that the introduction is related to the agenda. In contrast to this practice of introducing agenda items, topics not specified by the agenda are introduced by suggestions and questions that present the introduction as contingent on acceptance by the co-participants. The analysis sheds light on the ways in which institutional talk-in-interaction is permeated by the formulations and logic of written documents. (shrink)

This is a paper about The Causal Self-Referential Theory of Perception. According to The Causal Self-Referential Theory as developed by above all John Searle and David Woodruff Smith, perceptual content is satisfied by an object only if the object in question has caused the perceptual experience. I argue initially that Searle's account cannot explain the distinction between hallucination and illusion since it requires that the state of affairs that is presented in the perceptual experience must exist in order for the (...) perception to be veridical. Smith's account is interestingly different in that the descriptive content, i.e. the content that presents the perceptual object as having certain properties, does not determine the object of the experience. His account consequently does not require that the state of affairs that is presented in perception exists in order for the perception to have an object. Smith argues instead that perceptual reference is determined by a specific kind of demonstrative content. In this paper it is argued that Smith's account of demonstrative content is too indeterminate and in certain circumstances prescribes the wrong object. It is subsequently argued that the theory of demonstrative content can be modified so as to avoid these consequences. This modification involves deriving the conditions of satisfaction of seeing an object from the conditions of satisfaction of seeing the shape of the object, where the shape of the object is conceived of as a particularized property, what is also called a ‘trope’. (shrink)

In recent years, I have published a number of papers addressing various aspect of inferentialism. These papers, I believe, do provide for a relatively multifaceted picture of (my version of) this enterprise; though still a picture that is in some respects patchy. This has made me start working on this book – it should bring my ideas of various aspects and dimensions of inferentialism to a desirable synthesis. Building the individual chapters, I usually start from taking parts of my published (...) papers as basic building blocks, putting them togethether and then trying to make them fit together with each other, and with the rest of the book, seamlessly. As a result, material from the older papers gets upgraded so that the chapters no longer contain many pieces of the papers in their original form. As inferentialism is a new and unsettled matter, I am not only putting forward some new ideas, but in some cases I also have to put together new frameworks to enable me to articulate these ideas intelligibly in the first place. I think that doing this with a reasonable outcome is not possible without some feadback. I do get some from my colleagues, but I will be grateful to anybody who would like to comment on anything presented here. (shrink)

1.1 INFERENTIALISM AND REPRESENTATIONALISM 1.2 INFERENTIALISM AND LOGIC 1.3 FROM PROOF THEORY TO SEMANTICS 1.4 BRANDOM'S NORMATIVE INFERENTIALISM..

V knize konfrontuji běžné pojetí jazyka, podle kterého je význam záležitostí vztahu slovo-věc, se strukturalistickým pohledem, podle kterého význam nemůže existovat bez toho, aby byly výrazy určitým způsobem provázány mezi sebou. Ukazuji, že takový strukturalismus není jen věcí Ferdinanda de Saussura, ale že se vyskytuje (pod jménem holismus) i v základech (post)analytické filosofie Quina, Davidsona, Sellarse a Brandoma. Ukazuji také, že není neslučitelný s formálně-logickým přístupem k významu, jaký byl rozpracován Carnapem, Montaguem a dalšími.

The intention of this article is to make an educational analysis of Merleau-Ponty’s theory of experience in order to see what it implicates for educational practice as well as educational research. In this way, we can attain an understanding what embodied experience might mean both in schools and other educational settings and in researching educational activities. The analysis will take its point of departure in Merleau-Ponty’s analysis and criticism of empiricist and neokantian theories of experience. This will be followed up (...) by an introduction of some central concepts in Merleau-Ponty’s own understanding of experience with emphasis on their relevance for educational analysis. This way of presenting the theory of embodied experience has the advantage of being able to indicate the difference it makes in the field of theories of experience. (shrink)

In the literature, regress arguments often take one of two different forms: either they conclude that a given solution fails to solve any problem of a certain kind (the strong conclusion), or they conclude that a given solution fails to solve all problems of a certain kind (the weaker conclusion). This gives rise to a logical problem: do regresses entail the strong or the weaker conclusion, or none? In this paper I demonstrate that regress arguments can in fact take both (...) forms, and clearly set out the logical difference between them. Throughout the paper, I confine myself to metaphysical examples from the early Russell. Only now that we know they are valid can we start to discuss whether they are sound. (shrink)